Why Oklahoma is Closing Parks for the First Time in Almost 10 Years

Joe Wertz is a senior reporter and managing editor at StateImpact Oklahoma. He reports regularly on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets, and serves as president-elect of Freedom of Information Oklahoma, an open records and government transparency nonprofit. Previously, he worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers. He lives in Oklahoma City, and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Oklahoma hasn’t shuttered a state park in nine years, and it’s been 20 years since we’ve seen the scope of parks closures announced in early 2011.

In March, the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department said it would close seven state parks, reducing its park total to 35 from 42. The department’s Executive Director Deby Snodgrass said the move would save taxpayers about $660,000 per year.

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A man rides an ATV across the sand at Beaver Dunes, a former state park recently acquired by the City of Beaver.

The department has had its budget cut by more than 22 percent since 2009, and was anticipating its budget to shrink another 3 percent this year, Snodgrass said.

Silver River Canoe Trails near Miami has shown the biggest attendance decline over the last seven years. Tucker Tower, near Lake Murray and Ardmore, saw a huge jump in attendance in the same time period.

Oklahoma’s last park closure came in 2002, when the state handed the Quartz Mountain Resort Park/Golf Course over to the state’s Higher Education Board of Regents in a bill authored by late state Sen. Robert M. Kerr, D-Altus.

Kerr hoped reconfiguring the historically money-losing resort as an educational conference center would help it attract endowments and grants.

Scores of state-run parks, museums and historical sites were shut down in 1991, a dozen of which were transferred to the Oklahoma Historical Society. Operations at 14 other state-run sites were transferred or discontinued all together that year.

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A former state park, the Washita Battlefield near Cheyenne became a part of the National Parks System in 1996.

Beyond their poor attendance records, data show the parks slated for closure this year were among the 10 that generated the least revenue from activity fees, such as those levied for camping, hooking up RVs or using boat ramps.

All together, the seven former state parks only made $122,628 in FY 2011, less than 1 percent of total parks revenue, tourism data show.

Cities and tribes are just starting to account for the new parks in their budgets, so it’s unclear if the public will see any increases in fees associated with park activities. But some of the parks’ new owners are already discussing whether to cut back on park services and employees.

The City of Sallisaw, which recently acquired Brushy Lake, has reduced the park’s annual bill to about $70,000 from more than $231,000. But City Manager Bill Baker is already lamenting the loss of funding that could have been spent on other city salaries or equipment — like police cars.

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